


Shared Walls

by HolyPlasmaBall



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alcohol, Angband, Cuddles, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mairon POV, Slice of Life, Unreliable Narrator, Utumno-era, a looong conversation that goes nowhere, angbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyPlasmaBall/pseuds/HolyPlasmaBall
Summary: The Lord of Angband and the King of Arda hang out in the late hours. Mairon asks about the upturned mug on the end table. Despite his best efforts, Melkor fails to give a conclusive answer. (set when utumno still existed)
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Kudos: 27





	Shared Walls

Maintenance was the key to longevity. All things weathered, were they of metal, of wood or of earthenware, but their rotten planks might still be replaced, and their spent edges ground anew. Sounder still were measures that pre-empted their necessity; a pulley daily taken apart and oiled did not stall around its axle.

As with the inanimate, so did the rule of preservation apply to the living. Even the Valar rested, and to that mind had Mairon assigned the late hours of his days to maintain himself, so that his performance would remain intact. With scented baths and oils he spoiled away his severity, and as he might place his tools away in a casket of velvet, so did he wrap such soft things about his body. He put aside responsibility, his titles and the confines of his courtly character, and let his mind and manner wander where they pleased, so he might return to duty renewed. These were the hours of his undoing, of self indulgence and debauchery, and the hours Melkor was always keen to steal for himself.

Early was the arrival of Melkor that day, but not unheralded, for the upset of his coming was felt throughout Angband. The change he brought was immediate; as fabric drenched in water grew more vibrant in colour, so he suffused his surroundings with intensity. Within Mairon it kindled anticipation, and though he assayed to dismail and bathe in a leisured manner, soon did the stone steps chill his bare feet as he ascended their upward spiral to his chambers.

The door at the end of his clandestine path barely opened for the heavy drape which concealed its existence, the gap just enough for Mairon to slip through to the warm space of his sitting room. His chambers were of straight lines and acute angles, and all things about favoured metal over wood. Further coherence was achieved by the measured use of carpets; what strays of furniture might have run rampant were penned neatly within their designated rectangles. Across the room the hearth blazed light as wheat, and before it sat Melkor, upon a couch of embossed velvet, his broad frame silhouetted by the dancing flame.

It was unlike him to sit down; when idle, Melkor roamed about. Such stillness could bode ill, and wary was Mairon, for whatever face Melkor wore was hidden from him. No armor girdled his shoulders, and free of his crown he was also, and unbridled spilled the tumults of his black hair about his form. His right arm stretched along the back of the couch, and there to his relief Mairon spied some movement, Melkor thumbing absentmindedly at the bearings of the metal frame. _Reading,_ Mairon realized all at once, putting together the fiddling fingers and the slight angle of Melkor’s head. 

With the mood of the Vala revealed, Mairon walked freely along the maze of the carpets toward the entry to his bedroom, his purpose that of fetching the letter tray before any demand for his attention was made. On the end table beside Melkor a mug had been turned upside down, and against all odds Mairon hoped no trace of tea had been left within when that had occurred. The service table he passed also, and on it he saw that the jug of wine was filled. The gold rimmed goblets had been taken out as well, awaiting their use by the jug, and nestled between their bases-

Mairon halted.

A key laid between the goblets.

A key with remarkable likeness to the one Mairon kept hidden in the ornament above the hearth.

Too late would he be to interfere. This he knew, even as he turned to look behind him where his cabinet stood.

Unlocked and shamelessly ajar hung the false panel at the flank of the cabinet, as if flaunting the emptiness of its shelves, and the stack of diaries missing from within Mairon found strewn across the couch. Melkor held one of the brass framed booklets in a one-handed grasp, the pages turning themselves at his will, and naught but blue delight shone from his gaze as he consumed the stolen words.

Outrage flashed within Mairon, but it failed to entirely overturn his mood, for he was flattered, also, that the mundane retellings of his days might hold Melkor in their spell. What ire could not be soothed by flattery, was soon overtaken by charm. Too beautiful was Melkor to be entirely hated, and too endearing, as he laid there in his reclined seat, his bare feet crossed at the ankles upon a footstool, his shoulders missing their pauldrons, his head without a helm.

With dubious resentment Mairon considered the sight before him and found he could not bring himself to disturb it. Besides, he had correspondence to do, and if Melkor was allowed to remain distracted, Mairon might yet write his letter in peace.

The spiral of stairs were but one of the many secret passages he made use of to move about his fortress undetected, and the path to the letter tray he kept on his desk in his study ran through another such entrance. No servant of Mairon’s was aware of the existence of a bedroom behind the wall of the study, for such proof of weakness would be detrimental to the image of the iron-clad tyrant that must be maintained.

Briefly before pushing open the bookshelf, Mairon felt for any presence beyond what his eyes and ears could perceive, and only when certain he was truly alone did he step through to the study. He preferred not to be seen without his crown, let alone dressed as though he were a handmaid of the earthqueen, with his feet bared and hair undone, missing but the flowers upon his brow. To this mind he picked up the tray with haste and swiftly returned to safety, for the fire in the study was dangerously low, and at any moment his servants might barge in to feed it.

On the low table between the couch and the hearth he first set the tray, then the pile of what diaries he could extract from Melkor, and finally two goblets of wine. Without a pause for thought he began to write, for conversing with Langon he found effortless, and the letters that were dealt between them seemed to compose themselves. 

Before long, Melkor abandoned his reading, and the fingers that had worried at the couch found their new snare in Mairon’s hair. Admirably he held his tongue until Mairon set the letter aside to dry, and only when Mairon picked up the pin to clean the quill, did he make his declaration.

“It is just as I said.” He tapped the diary in his lap with a flair of triumph. “All this time you have blamed yourself.”

Wondering how far he should reach within his memory, Mairon made for the diary, and for the year written on its back, but briskly it was snatched away from his fingers.

“That little mishap along the Gorge Road,” specified Melkor.

It was not what Mairon expected to hear. A simple twist of fate had caused the Hunt to coincide with a supply of iron on its way to Bywend, and as unfortunate as the following carnage had been, there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it.

“How could I possibly hold blame for something none could foresee?”

“How indeed?” Melkor glanced at Mairon, his brow raised, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. “It puzzles me just as much, that years after the fact you still return to this matter.”

His quill picked clean, Mairon reached to drop it in the tray, and replaced it with his dwindling goblet of wine.

“Not because of guilt, but for the purpose of salvaging what new knowledge there is to be learned,” said he. “Any ruler worth their title would dwell on such a teachable moment.”

“That thing that you do - you do it in writing, also.” Melkor looked ahead, searching his memory. “’Like a wolf chasing its tail’ - was that what I called it? Yea, half a book of tail-chasing on accord of one skirmish remembered by none.”

“You are doing that thing where you read into things that are not there.”

“You know of what I speak. How many times have I been lost in my own thought when suddenly I get overtaken by an avalanche of explanations why there is a wrinkle on your shirt? You fill the silence with judgment and deliver a tirade of answers to questions that none have even thought to ask - and this is how you write about the attack. Is it not rather telling that you should jump to such conclusions?”

“No,” said Mairon, but how he was to proceed from there, he knew not. All he knew for certain was his heart, in which he held no blame, and that Melkor had both a talent for twisting reality to his liking, and a liking for twisting reality.

“No?” Melkor repeated. A faint smile played upon his lips and in the corners of his eyes. “Then there is the matter of repression. I know of your longings and desires and they are many. Yet you barely mention these at all. Why - even in the private retelling of your thought - must you smother yourself?”

Mairon sipped his wine. Ill-advised had been his decision to allow Melkor to keep reading.

“It is not repression,” said he, “but foresight.”

The smile upon Melkor’s face grew to fruition. “Foresight?”

“Preparation in case of a heinous, thieving fiend, who might one day breach my sanctuary and steal away my writings, which, as you said, are _private_ in nature.”

It seemed that only then did the questionable nature of his actions occur to Melkor. He tilted his head, and a brief frown twitched at his brow, but when he glanced sideways at Mairon, not a speck of shame mired his face

“I had no choice in the matter,” said he, fashioning sincerity with a slight raise of his brows. “I discovered a mysterious key.”

“As a result of what?” Mairon asked, and as Melkor only shook his head, answered, “ _Snooping_.”

“It was purely coincidental,” said Melkor, and then, inexplicably, nodded at his upturned tea mug as if it explained things further. “The quest was thrust upon me, and this-” he held up the diary, “-is the reward for my troubles, which I accept gratefully. Naught but duty drives me while I comb through this treasure for all its worth - for it would not do to waste such a gift, now would it? - and I assure you, I take no pleasure in completing my task. I had other plans, you see.”

“Oh, I see. Forgive me for enticing you with my hidden key.”

“You are forgiven. For this, and for all your other transgressions.” Melkor opened the diary once more. “To call your King _a fiend_ …I should have your head…”

“The fiend I was referring to was entirely hypothetical. Although…is it not rather telling that you should jump to such conclusions?”

A flash of ire shocked the room. Mairon hid his smile in the goblet and counted the seconds to thunder.

“I should never have put a crown on you,” Melkor rumbled.

The temper was there, but it was not upon them.

Mairon drank his last mouthful of wine and set the emptied goblet on the table. Trading dignity for comfort he lifted his feet on the couch and curled up, shuffling closer to Melkor until he was within the range of embrace. At his silent request the arm Melkor had slung over the back of the couch came to pull him close, the leaden weight of its influence seeping into bone and flesh alike, until every muscle in Mairon’s body seemed slackened, and he slumped against Melkor’s side. Unlordly as it was, there were no witnesses, and the appeal of the deep sense of wellness that came over him was enough to glue him in place.

Coarse was the fabric on Melkor, his shirts and surcoats twined by thought from volcanic fiber, and it bore a scent of its fiery origin, of igneous minerals frozen to rock. In such small splinters it frayed asunder that Mairon could not perceive it by eyesight at all, and only by the itch of his skin did the shards make themselves known. Onto this hazardous plane Mairon splayed his fingers and felt the hulking muscle underneath, his aim between a craftsman’s appreciation for shape, and something far more unseemly. He thought of sleep, and of the bedroom now caught between two hearths, the promise of hot oblivion a lullaby for his weary self. Yet other plans were there to tilt with simple rest, and with growing conviction he considered slipping his hand further down Melkor’s body to see what might happen.

But before his decision was made, the upturned mug stayed his eye. No matter how he turned his thought over, he could not understand why, in the finding of a key _fathoms_ off the ground, Melkor would implicate such an item.

With all his senses he reached out to detect some anomaly, but his efforts were drowned in the well of power that surrounded Melkor. By push of curiosity he then parted from his resting place, and upon his knees he reached to inspect by hand where his other senses were hindered, but before he might do so, his wrist was caught.

“No,” said Melkor tonelessly, most of his focus lost in the diary.

Mairon sat back. “What is it?”

“Just a thought.”

“What was the thought?”

Melkor set the diary down. For a moment he was silent, and naught but the soft crackle of fire could be heard as he delved into his own mind. His eyes saw things that were not there; patterns and connections and implications; the framework of his inner thought laid out before him. This he sought with his gaze, frustration wedged between his brows as he assayed to cut down a piece of it so he might put it to words. 

“Does your bedroom have walls?” He asked at last. “There is the wall of the study, the hallway to the left, the staircase to the right and the sitting room. It is a space boxed in by other spaces.”

“Does your argument break entirely if you came to know about cavity walls?”

“Think not of the walls as walls. Think of the _wallness_ of the walls.”

“What is the wallness of the walls?” Mairon asked, and settled to a more comfortable position. By the tone of Melkor’s voice alone he could tell what he was in for; an experiment conducted by thought alone. Nothing of worth could be gained from these talks, for Melkor loathed the very mention of applicability, and yet Mairon took pleasure in them, for Melkor was wound from passion for ideas, and ever so sonorous became his voice when he spoke from heart.

“I say the concept of wallness - of borders and barriers - is to separate one from an other,” said Melkor. “This however raises the question: who _has_ the wall? You might think a wall its own entity - for by definition, it is not a part of what it walls - but this is not the case. You see, wallness is depended on there being something to wall apart. It cannot exist on its own.”

A silence fell as Melkor hearkened to an answer.

“I think…” Mairon stammered.

“Does your bedroom have walls?”

“Well…the walls are shared.”

“Every wall is a shared wall. The function of a wall is twofold - just as it walls in, it always walls out. But does your bedroom _have_ walls? Should we tear apart the building, would your bedroom be entitled to keep the wall over your study?”

“Entitled? As in-”

“Let us remove the walls to ease our exploration. Now, consider the study, the bedroom and the sitting room as one continuum without walls. There would still be a spot where you slept, a spot for your letters and your…your-” Melkor snapped his fingers.

“Ledger?”

“With no clear separation, the blending of the rooms would occur; the spaces billowing in and out and specializing to new combinations. And yet, even in this state of chaos, the immutable constant of your sleeping place would radiate its character, and a sphere of influence would be created, and even though the borders of this would be vague and ever shifting, borders would they be, and thusly our wallness is achieved. A point further proven should we remove the room from aught else, for even as we place it in a void, a border arises, for the room is not the void, and the void is not the room. Yea, by the nature of its being does your bedroom wall itself.”

The blue grip of Melkor’s eyes fell on Mairon, and with it came the usual struggle, for when pressed Mairon’s natural response was to give aid; to point out how everything Melkor said was baseless and wrong and how it might be corrected. But such words were not what Melkor wished to gain as he so studied Mairon for his response. He was only ever after approval, and though Mairon could not grant it in matters of the Kingdom, no restrictions of duty withheld him now. Be that as it may, the only truthful answer Mairon could give was a correction, and so he had no choice but to guess what Melkor wished to hear.

“By that logic I say yes, the bedroom does indeed have walls.”

Having made his gain, Melkor kicked aside the footstool and sat up straight. Tall was he and majestic with his head held high and his able bearing, the baleful light of his eyes betraying the almighty violence hidden within.

“And this is where the trouble lies,” said he. “Now, consider a bee walling off honey. Which has walls, the bee or the honey? The honey is unlike your bedroom, for the only thing giving it its identity is a wall. With the walls in place we might tell the combs apart - call them by numbers, or by names - but take the walls away, and what once were their separate entities, are now one mass of honey. Just as the wall, these entities cannot exist on their own, and only come into being once something external walls them so.“

With all this talk of identity and ownership, Mairon began to see the path he was being led down, and dangerous were the waters Melkor was about to wade into. Refusing to choose his position before having full clarity of what they were speaking of, he gave an unanswer for an answer, “An argument could be made for either the bee or the honey.”

At such a blatant evasion Melkor narrowed his eyes, and a tight lipped smile soon matched his displeasure, but he did not adjure Mairon for more.

“Of the many minds involved in the devising of Angband yours was the chief architect. Your bedroom is not honey; it does not lose its character when met with other rooms. Yet the walls around it are of your design and making. Do you have a share in them, as well?”

“No,” Mairon said, now certain they were speaking of Eru. “Not in the way you mean. I can claim them, but they are not…attached to my being. Should I lose these halls, I would remain unchanged in spirit.”

Melkor turned on the couch so they faced one another, and took Mairon’s palm, pressing his thumb against it.

“Where the ëala meets the world that is, a fana is formed. Be it a muscle, a gust of wind, or an ember, a fana is a compromise of matter and spirit; the inanimate made living; a wall, according to our definition, for it separates one from an other, and yet remains dependent, disintegrating entirely should either the ëala or the physical matter be removed. Should we follow this principle, what do you think the wall between two ëalar?”  
Too keenly were Melkor’s eyes on Mairon then, and he pulled his hand back to himself to cross his arms, looking away into the flames. Rarely he thought of the timeless before, for beyond Eä his nature was lesser than he cared to remember, and even as a memory such a state of helplessness made him ill.  
“A song, perhaps,” he gave his answer. “I do hope you have not forgotten about the mug.”  
“Singing merely manifests the wall.”  
“Melkor, the mug.”  
“Quiet,” Melkor pressed a finger to Mairon’s lips. “What are the shared walls between us, the things that form where we meet and interact? Immaterial must they be - for this is business of the souls - and unable to form without our presence.”

The finger resting on Mairon’s lips shifted, and for a moment Mairon thought he was given permission to speak, but then Melkor took him by the throat as though he might bed him then and there. Firm was the hold of his palm, and warm, as he measured the pace of pulse and breath, and the look of his eyes gave no answer to the question Mairon cast at him.

“Should I grasp any other being by the throat as I have you now, they would be stricken with fear. But not you, for you assume it not a threat, and this knowledge you base upon all that has occurred between us ere this moment. To this mind I say a wall between two ëalar is shared memory; a twofold experience of the event of life. For it is in memory where the secret knowledge of each relationship is stored, and from memory are the borders of our conduct conjured as we meet.”

The hand on Mairon’s throat eased, and after Melkor had ran the path of Mairon’s jaw with his thumb, he moved to play with Mairon’s hair instead. And in this sudden plunge to tenderness, Mairon bethought himself of all the ways Melkor had come to know him, and weakened was he, as though Melkor was holding him by the heart.

“Accidental as it was, you were right,” said Melkor, his eyes on the strand of flame red hair wound about his fingers. “An argument could be made for either the bee, or the honey. The wall’s existence is dependent on what gives it cause to be, and causation is what we have used to argue ownership. You have caused the walls of your bedroom to be, and so, when it comes to the question of ownership, you and the room are on equal standing.”

Melkor’s eyes darted up, and in their blue peril was Mairon caught, naked and defenseless.

“But there is a way to escape the bee,” said Melkor. “If you were willing to give the wall itself precedence, and admit that it holds power over you, and not the other way around. Grant value to this-” he made a vague gesture between them, “- and consider these hours we while away not the means to an end, but the end in itself.”

Mairon knew not to let Melkor in his head, and yet, uncertainty overtook him. All the clarity of his daily schedules became confused, and no longer could he tell which version of himself was he truly beholden to, and which was only there to maintain the other. This thought he turned over under Melkor’s pressuring gaze, and found he could not choose, and it angered him, for it was unfair to expect him to answer such questions, when his mind was already spent in the solving of troubles his useless servants brought to him daily.

Too long now the silence had stretched and something had to be done about that as well.

“That certainly is a thought,” said Mairon and stood up. “I for one have been thinking how warm my bed must be with both hearths burning so bright and for so long.”

He went to pick up the letter tray, but Melkor denied him by a snap of his fingers.

“I have use for a quill,” said he, softly, but with command in his eyes. “Leave the tray.”

Mairon hesitated.

“Go to your oven, precious. I know where to return your things.”

It might have persuaded him, had Melkor ever acted on such knowledge. Still, unwilling to fight a battle he was sure to lose, he left the tray behind, and retreated to his bedroom. Warm was the air and inviting, the pillows and blankets on his bed well baked, but even as Mairon beheld their spread, the words Melkor had spoken lingered unresolved.

Prolonged were his steps as he retraced them back into the sitting room, and upon his return he found Melkor expecting him, the diary in his hand still unopened. Quietly they watched one another, until Mairon jerked into motion, marching behind the couch where he could reach Melkor the easiest. With gentle fingers he brushed the black flood of hair aside from Melkor’s cheek and stooped down to kiss him. Melkor reached a hand up to Mairon’s face in return, and for a moment held him in place.

It seemed to sort things out, in Mairon’s heart at least, and sleep came to him with ease.

When he awoke, Melkor was gone, the absence made known in the paleness of color, the thinness of air, and the ache in Mairon’s chest. Be that as it may, Mairon was glad, for mightier yet than Angband stood Utumno, and with a greater standing came greater need for attention, and the more time Melkor sat his throne in the North, the better.

The letter tray he found where he had left it, as expected, though a little worse for wear, which was not entirely unexpected in itself. The upturned mug Melkor had forgotten, also, and with caution Mairon now approached it, for in the absence of the Vala, his senses told him something within it lived.

With measured movements Mairon lifted the mug off the tabletop, and revealed…the tabletop.

Naught but the pristine surface of waxed wood was there to mirror his gaze.

A buzz stirred the mug, and Mairon nearly dropped it as some fuzzy insect shot out across the room.

His first thought was that of incineration, but he held his fire, for unwise would it be to destroy any possession of Melkor’s without permission. As he watched the thing loop about, he could make out the coat of a bee, and as the chaotic patterns of its flight brought it to slam into the drapes and the racks of candles, the mystery of the key became unriddeled.

What the bee represented in Melkor’s mind, however, this Mairon could only guess. Ever so fond of symbols was he, and perhaps in his thought the bee was an emblem of ‘wallness’, or even a metaphor for Eru Himself. An experiment it could be, also, for the alterations Melkor made often pertained to the inner workings of cells, and such change would not be obvious to the eye. And it was always possible that the bee held no meaning at all, and that Melkor had simply picked it up absentmindedly, as he did with any number of small things that he happened upon.

Mairon placed the mug back on the end table, and picked up the diary that had been left open to dry. A honeycomb pattern filled half the page, the sketch bemired in circles, arrows and arithmetic markings, the whole mess of it underlined by a single smudged word: _Useful?_

Pointless were Melkor’s monologues about the inherent nature of things, but in those rare occasions when he took to actually proving his thought by numbers, the results were invaluable. Undeniably exited was Mairon as he put the diary aside for later inspection, knowing he would find the contents of it useful indeed, and a smile yet held his face as he bent down to write a letter declaring Melkor had two days to rescue his pet, or its life would be forfeit.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently honeycomb structures make most efficient use of space and building material and its super shear and compression resistant or something and its used in rockets and stuff. So I figured Mai would be into that.
> 
> Also Melkor’s clothes aren’t made of asbestos theyre made of basalt fiber. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.


End file.
